CHAPTER 30
What is Love . . . Final Part
The tyres squealed in protest as the car came to a sudden stand still. Her body pushed forward as the seat belt tightened around her stomach. Her hands were pressed against the dashboard while she felt herself shake from the sudden impact. Then she heard the car door bang shut. Alarmed she looked to her side and she gasped. Her eyes widened in shock as watched Maan hitting a random stranger in the mid of the road. Hadn't he promised her he wouldn't beat anyone without a reason?
Then her eyes fell at the young boy, certainly in his teenage years, standing a few feet away from Maan, trembling head to toe. She unlatched her seat belt as she stepped out of the car and that was when she heard Maan billow "Dare you touch the boy!"
*****
It was good ten minutes since the beating had commenced and it was nowhere near end!
And then . . .
The boy walked over to Maan as he spoke meekly "He is my father"
Maan turned to look at the boy in astonishment. Why a father would beat his son in the middle of a road!
"Why would he hit you?" Maan exclaimed.
"I failed my exam" the boy replied with his head downcast. Maan's anger shot new heights as she scowled at the man in front of him menacingly. This was no way to handle a child! Maan would have definitely hit the man again had it not been for Geet who held his hand in mid air.
"You promise your father you would work hard next time" Geet said as she looked the boy while he merely nodded.
"And you dare hit him again" Maan threatened with gritted teeth as he shot the man a menacing look.
Soon after the father-son left, Maan spoke, moving back towards the car "I saw the man beating the kid as they crossed the road and I thought he was kidnapping the kid or something like that . . ."
"And it infuriated you" Geet stated while Maan opened the door for her.
"Regardless the reason that is no way to handle a child" Maan exclaimed as he turned on the ignition.
"Certainly" Geet replied latching on her seat belt.
******
Something had changed! But she couldn't draw a line just what. She was stealing covert glances at Maan while he was seemingly engrossed in driving. Well, she smiled as she remembered their first meeting . . . She'd slapped him. Dramatic in every sense of the word! And now in the span of hardly two weeks, she had come to terms of respecting him.
Maan found it impossible to keep his eyes on the road when he was fully alert to her staring session. It was flattering indeed, that she was stealing glances as him but at same time it made him darned restless. Anyway, there was nothing he could do about it, and the best possible solution was to get out of the car as soon as possible . . . For that he needed to drive real fast.
Five minutes . . .
Ten minutes . . .
Fifteen minutes . . .
A sigh of relief washed over him as he turned round the corner and braked. Finally there were here.
*****
It was a resort on the outskirts of Delhi . . . Pretty famous or so Maan claimed, she thought as she walked along side Maan while he led her to somewhere. They stopped near a table by the edge of the pool. He pulled out a chair for her, smiling at her warmly.
"Uh . . . can I sit on that seat" she said looking at other seat, away from the pool, "I can't swim and . . ."
"You won't fall into the water" Maan replied, "Trust me . . . Rest you can where you want"
"Nahi I will sit here . . . You do know swimming right"
"Yes"
"Good . . . You can save me if I fall"
"Absolutely . . . But you won't fall"
Then she took her seat while he walked over to his and right that moment the leg of the chair broke and before Geet knew into she was falling towards the pool. Maan heard a clunk as he looked back and saw Geet slip into the water. Reflexively his hand reached out to hold her but he only managed to grab her finger for a fleeting moment before she fell into the water,
*****
Her heart best in her chest as she felt the water engulf her . . .
And then she felt an arm hold her wrist pulling her out of the water . . .
It wasn't the first time someone hugged her. It wasn't the first time he hugged her. Yet everything about this embrace was different. She could hear his heart thud inside her ears. She could feel his muscles tensed to the extent of being absolutely stiff as he tightened his hold around her.
And almost as if it was only natural, her hands moved behind his back, returning the hug.
"Don't ever leave me" She heard him rasp.
*****
The moment when he had felt her fingers slip from his hand . . . It occurred to him it wasn't her hand which slipped away, rather his life. When she had become so important in his life, he couldn't tell. He had never been fearful of a thing in his life, and now he dreaded losing her.
And when he had caught her hand in the water, while she had been sinking into the deep, it was in that moment he had given a name to the little thing which seemed to exist between them.
After having stepped out of the water, when he had hugged her, he had promised to never let go. With that one hug, he was reassuring himself she was just fine. It was only after a few moments when he had felt her hands slither to his waist that he had felt a calm pass through him.
He had squeezed her even tighter and she'd hugged him back.
"Don't ever leave me" he spoke the words into her nape.
*****
"Chairs hate me I suppose" she said pulling of the hug while he looked upon her with evident confusion.
"Last time we dined together the chair collapsed and this time I fell off it" she chimed thoughtfully.
'God I love her' he thought to himself as he pulled into another bear hug.
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
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